


Always Gold

by xxx_cat_xxx



Series: Whumping Tony Stark [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Broken Bones, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Concussions, Gen, Hurt Tony, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Irondad, Mission Fic, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Nausea, Pain, Protective Peter, Sickfic, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Vomiting, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 16:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15368328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_cat_xxx/pseuds/xxx_cat_xxx
Summary: “Is Mr. Stark alright?” Peter asks anxiously, his shadow blocking out the angry lights assaulting Tony´s retinas when he bends over him.“Yeah, but he’s out of commission.” Nat´s voice.“Am not.” He knows she´s right, but it´s Nat, so disagreeing is a matter of principle.---Tony is injured while protecting Peter in a battle, but he has to pull through to get everyone to safety. Featuring Peter repairing an airplane, Tony being heavily whumped (as usual), and Natasha being Natasha.





	Always Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Another mission fic! I´m sorry about any technical inaccuracies, I really watch the movies because of the characters and don´t usually pay much attention to those details. Levae a comment if you have suggestions. And leave a comment if you like it, I always love to read those. Enjoy, and follow me on tumblr at [xxx-cat-xxx.tumblr.com](https://xxx-cat-xxx.tumblr.com/).

Tony comes to when he hears Peter’s voice saying his name, muffled through layers of half-consciousness. He hesitantly opens one of his eyes. Reality is awfully bright and loud and he immediately decides that he doesn´t like it. He wearily drags an arm over his face, trying to hide from the world. Everything hurts.

“Is Mr. Stark alright?” Peter asks anxiously, his shadow blocking out the angry lights assaulting Tony´s retinas when he bends over him.

“Yeah, but he’s out of commission.” Nat´s voice.

“Am not.” He knows she´s right, but it´s Nat, so disagreeing is a matter of principle. Talking increases the pain in his head exponentially, his voice reverberating like thunder in his ears. Well, hoarse thunder.

“Yes, you are. Shut up and rest, Stark, you can join the discussion once you are able to talk without barfing.”

Tony ignores her and tries to push himself up on his elbows, just to dangerously tilt to the left. Or the right, for that matter, directions are not exactly his strong suit right now. Someone pushes him back down. He squints at the figure and catches sight of a threadbare blanket set against a background of steel and glas before he has to shut his eyes against the pain. _Bruce. The quinjet._

“Seriously, Tony. Stay down. Doctor´s orders.” his voice is calm and gratefully low-key.

“Thought you’re not that kind of doctor.” The numbness in Tony’s limbs is slowly subsiding, and his body doesn´t like what it reveals. He feels like he´s had a wrestling match against the Hulk, without his suit.

“Well, sometimes I am.” Bruce rebutts.

“Then give me some pain killers.” Tony tries to make it sound casual, sensing Peter´s presence around, but it comes out pleading.

“I did, twice, and you threw them up both times.” Bruce states with sigh that´s close to exasperation.

“Oh.” He doesn’t remember that. He doesn’t remember a lot, actually. But now that Bruce mentions it, his stomach is definitely on the wrong side of funny.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Dude, you forgot again?” Bruce huffs. “I´m done repeating myself, seriously. Peter, come here, you tell him this time.” He gets up and makes for the rear of the jet.

The boy jumps towards the cot Tony is lying on and bends down to his level, eager to help. There´s a small bruise on his temple, but else he seems unharmed. That´s something, at least.

“Well, enlighten me, kid,” Tony sighs.

“We were on a mission, Mr. Stark, and there was a huge amount of Hydra agents, lots of them, and they had crazy tech, like, you know these water guns that you used to play with as a kid - or I did, at least - just like these, only they were real guns, and without the colouring- “

“Geez, just come to the point, kid”, Tony interrupts, “You´re worse than a truckload of grannys on coffee klatch.” He doesn´t want to be rude, but god, he´s tired. And nauseous. He can feel his stomach slowly climbing up his throat.

“Sorry, Mr. Stark.” Peter blushes, and his tone sobers up a little. “Okay, so we were fighting, and I nearly had their leader tied to a street lamp,” he mimics firing his webshooters, “but then he kinda blasted the wall behind me with his gun, which was not a fair move at all, seriously. And then…” he looks down, suddenly appearing guilty.

“…then Daddy came and saved his life heroically, pushing him to safety and getting buried underneath a bulding. Once again.” Nat finishes for him, glancing over from where she´s sitting at the control panel. “God, we should sell the movie rights, your grannys would cry their eyes out.” 

“I could have handled it!” Peter protests, the volume of his voice making Tony cringe.

“No, you couldn´t’ve.” he objects.

“That’s not fair! You don´t even remember what happened!”

“Don’t need to. I know how you are, pre-K, taking on stuff that’s too big for you, trying to be a god-damn action hero.” Tony coughs, wishing for it not to turn into a gag, and his whole body aches with the sudden movement. Peter´s form has become a blur in front of his eyes.

“Who´s the hero here? I didn´t get a concussion trying to protect my teammates!” the boy objects.

“Watch it, kid! I´d lecture you on what’s written in the manual about dangerously reckless behaviour, if… if I could remember.” He trails off, swallowing heavily. “Anyways, we won?”

“We got away, and they have taken heavy hits.” Nat interferes. “But no, they aren´t finished off yet, and according to our intel, they might have aerial transport to follow us. We´re on autopilot, but I´m having the scanners run continuously.”

“What, you let them go?” he asks incredulously and just a tiny bit disappointed.

“Gosh, Tony, you were buried under a ton of rubble! I had to get you out and make sure that you weren´t dying from brain bleed, and Peter here was basically useless worrying about you as he does. I was glad I got Bruce calmed down from code green and all of you back in the jet before anything worse happened!”

“I wasn´t useless -” Peter speaks up, but Nat cuts him off.

“We already had this dicussion. Anyways, we can save the chit-chat for debrief. Tony, get back to sleep.”

He wants to object, but he´s afraid that he´ll lose the fight against the ever-growing nausea if he opens his mouth again. Also, keeping his eyes open makes him dizzy, so he leans back, hoping he´ll remember the conversation next time he wakes up. Darkness closes in as soon as he lets his head rest on the pillow.

—

“Stark, calm down, you’re gonna scare the kid!”

He wakes up trashing, his own hoarse scream ringing in his ear, shadows of the attackers still hovering around him. His stomach is already sitting in his throat, and it´s all he can do to role over and heave over the side of the cot. Liquid splashes into a plastic bag. Someone´s there, holding it open for him, lightly patting his back.

“Just get it all up, okay?” a voice says. He opens his eyes a bit. Red hair and black leather blur into view. He flinches away, taking a moment to convince himself it´s Nat, not an enemy.

“Easy, Tony, you´re in the quinjet. The team’s safe. You just had a bad dream or something.” Her tone is soothing, bare of all her usual sarcasm. Tony briefly wonders what he just made her witness.

“I don’t - remember you becoming - such a mother hen?” he pants between gags. More comes up and god, it hurts. If anything, it has gotten worse than before. Not only his head, his chest is on flames now as well. He’s sure he’s got at least two broken ribs on top of the concussion.

“I am not.” Nat’s back to her regular snippy self. “Just don’t fancy spending the next hours in a plane reeking of your puke. Besides, I thought you’d rather have me than the kid watch you tossing cookies…?” she raises an eyebrow.

Right. Peter. The events come back to him, slowly. He coughs, another heave catching him off guard. His head is spinning. He tries to aim for the bag and catches a bit of her elbow.

“Fuck“, he groans. “’m sorry.”

“Yikes…” she grimaces, but then, more serious “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Na, I’ll be good.” he spits and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, hating how his trembling fingers betrays him. “Had worse and survived.” He sees something flicker in her eyes. They both know what he’s talking about.

She grabs his side and guides him back into a lying position, and he can’t suppress an outcry.

“What now?” Nat demands.

“Ribs”, he groans between gritted teeth, “Fucking stop touching…”

“Okay, okay.” she lets go and Tony has to bite back a whimper when he falls onto the mattress. “Should´ve told me earlier. Anything else broken?”

“Not that I know,” he pants, “but do I look like a doctor? Speaking of that, where´s Mr. Choleric?”

“I sent him off to dreamland.” Nat motions with her head toward the rear. “He was pretty shaky after the fight. You know, calory burn, all that. Peter´s with him.”

“Hmm.” Tony groans. His head is spinning, and he can´t entirely catch his breath.

“Okay, you think you can keep down some water? We still got a few hours in front of us, don’t want you all dried out once we reach New York.” She presses a bottle into his jittery hands.

Tony´s protest is lost in the sudden blaring of the jet´s alarms. Nat´s up and at the consoles in an instant, but before she can do anything, a loud crash sounds from the rear when something strikes the plane hard. The world tilts to the side, and it’s all Tony can do to muffle his scream when his body hits the wall and agony explodes inside his head.

—–

Peter was playing on his phone next to a dozing Bruce, trying to distract himself. Battles like these are still somewhat new to him and always leaves him edgy, and the worry about his mentor isn´t exactly helping his nerves. Suddenly, his spider senses start tingling, causing the hairs on his forearms to stand. He is barely out of the door when a loud crash comes from behind him and a sudden loss of altitude makes his adrenaline spike. He runs to the front, trying not to lose his footing when the jet tilts.

The scene in the cockpit is chaotic, alarms blinking and blaring shrill, boxes and weapons that have come lose slipping around on the floor, Nat running to and fro while trying to stabilize the plane. Tony, apparently awake, is draped over the cot in a weird angle, squeezing his arms over his ears and grimacing in pain.

“What happened?” Bruce stumbles out behind Peter.

“They got us.” Nat replies briskly. She hits a few buttons and thankfully, the alarms fall silent.

“Bruce, headphones, bathroom.” she commands, not looking up from the monitors.

“I- ” he starts.

“Now!”

He doesn´t protest again, and Peter is grateful for it. They all know what’s going to happen if he hulks out in the small space of the quinjet. Apart from that, Bruce Banner might be one of the world´s most brilliant scientists, but in his human form he isn´t usually of much help in combat situations.

Another hit makes the plane jump in the air, and Peter has to grasp the wall as not to keel over.

“Shit!” Nat glares at the screens that have suddenly gone black and mumbles something unintelligible that sounds a lot like a Russian curse. “System´s down.” She presses a few buttons and kicks against the console, but nothing happens. “Stark, you conscious?”

“No.” comes a muffled groan. “But do I have a choice?”

“Not really. Weapon control´s is down, I gotta take them out manually from the rear before they blow us to pieces.” There is a bit of empathy in her voice when she continues. “You need to hold us stable, Tony, and get the system back online. Can you sit up?”

“If you tell me which way is up…” But he pushes himself onto his elbows and makes to sit. Peter is taken aback by how bad his mentor looks, white as a ghost, sweaty, ready to pass out. He doesn´t have time to think about it, though, because another explosion shakes the plane in its core and makes him and Nat reel on their feet. “They are nearly up to our level.” The assassin shoots Tony a look.

“Go, I got this!” he ensures, and Nat bolts to the storage to grab a monster of a gun that looks half as long and nearly as heavy as Peter. She positions herself near the loading ramp, hooks the weapon into its designated place and starts to shoot.

Peter turns back to Tony, who is now sitting hunched over, looking just about to be sick again. “What can I do?” he asks frantically, wanting to help but not knowing how. There´s too much input, the situation so different from the battles in the field where, despite the danger, there is always an emergency escape plan. And a mentor he can turn to who isn´t in danger of passing out any minute.

“Sit back. Be quiet.” Tony replies uncharacteristically brisk. He swallows heavily.

“But I want to help!” Peter protests. Tony doesn’t look like he can see straight, let alone fly an airplane. Apart from the worry about his mentor, Peter is painfully aware that their all surveillance currently depends on the man´s ability to maneuver them out of the situation.

“A, this is not a video game, Parker, you can´t just learn to fly an airplane within a few minutes. At least if you´re not me.” Tony slowly gets up, grasping for something to steady himself, then frowning as if he is trying to remember what he wanted to say. “And C”, he continues, “I´ve been getting along working on my own for 30 years, I think it´ll do for another few hours.”

Peter just stares at him.

“What?” Tony huffs, swaying on his feet.

“Your - your left pupil is blown, Mr. Stark. And you just skipped the second letter of the alphabet. I think you need some assistance.” Tony chooses this moment to lose his balance and unceremoniously crumble onto his butt, which Peter would find extremely funny if the situation wasn’t that serious.

Tony´s hand flies to his mouth as he bends forward and gags. Sick drops down from between his fingers onto the floor. “Shit” he gasps, retching painfully once more. A trickle of bile is added to the small puddle on the ground. “Help me up.” he urges, still swallowing thickly, wiping his hand on his pants.

Peter hurriedly gets the engineer back to his feet and supports him into the pilot seat. Tony takes only a few seconds to manually alter their flight path and bring them far above the swarm of Hydra´s drones attacking them, which earns him a grateful thumbs-up from Nat who is still busy taking them out on her own.

Tony turns to the panel that hosts the jet´s AI, but it stopped by a coughing fit that knocks the air out of him. He wheezes, clutching his chest with one hand, trying desperately to inhale enough oxygen. Peter can practically hear broken ribs shifting against each other.

“Mr. Stark….” Peter trails off, his heartbeat speeding up. He is not a doctor, but he knows that this cannot be a good sign.

“I´m okay, kid.“ Tony coughs again, squeezing his eyes shut. His face looks even paler than before and his breathing goes ragged and sounds painful. He squints at the control board, then sighs. “Fine, if you´re not gonna leave me alone, make yourself useful.”

He connects a tablet to the plane´s computer with shaky fingers and holds it out roughly in Peter´s direction. “Need to override the system to restart it, just enter whatever I´m telling ya. I´d do that myself, but the world is kinda… ” he draws a spinning movement into the air.

“Okay, okay, I can do that.” Peter says, taking a deep breath and trying not to panic at the thought that the man who’s currently flying the plane can’t see straight. Spiderman is needed now. Tony starts dictating him lines of code while keeping the plane on a more or less steady flight path, changing height and directions whenever Nat tells him to. Peter tries his best not to make mistakes, but a few times he misspell lines of code and Tony grunts angrily, apparently frustrated over his own lack of capability to complete the task.

“Mr. Stark? What now?” he asks and turns his head when Tony suddenly falls silent. The older man is gazing into space, one hand cradling the side of his head, the other curled loosely around the flight controller.

“What?” he blinks confusedly. “Good work, Parker, well done,” he rambles.

“No, Mr. Stark….the code. What should I enter next?”

“Huh?” he stares at Peter for a moment, then seems to remember. “Oh, ya you´re right. What’s it saying on the screen again?”

After another ten minutes of tensed work, blue lights finally appear at the control panel and Peter lets out a breath he hadn´t realized he´s been holding.

“Welcome, Mr. Stark, Mr. Parker.” Friday´s voice greets them.

“About time!” Nat shouts over to them. “I was running out of ammo here. Friday, take over the flight control and focus on the targets. Take them out at my command!”

“Mr. Stark, we made it!” Peter exclaims, a proud grin spreading over his face.

But Tony doesn´t react. He is sagged into his seat, head leaning against the backrest, breathing fast and shallow, sweat beading his brow. His gaze seems to linger somewhere in the distance, eyelids slowly drooping.

“Mr. Stark, you’re not going to pass out, are you? “

“I…” he trails off, nausea and panic crossing his face in rapid succession.

“Okay… We´ll get you lying down, I guess.” Peter says frantically, worry edging up in him. Tony’s head lolls forward, and he retches, a slim streak of bile soiling his lap.

“Nat, Dr. Banner?” Peter calls out, “Can - can someone help, please?”

He watches anxiously when Bruce carries the engineer to the cot and starts to carefully sweep his ribs. Tony moans in pain and tries to curl into himself, only half-conscious and barely realizing what´s going on around him. It nearly breaks Peter´s heart to see him in a state like this. He knows Tony wouldn´t want him to watch it, but he can´t bring himself to turn away, either.

Suddenly guilt takes over. It´s his fault that his mentor is injured this badly, from all he knows, Peter should have been the one to be hit by the wall, he should be lying on that cot in pain right now. His knees grow weak beneath him, and he sinks down to the floor, shaking noiselessly.

“Are you okay, Peter?” Bruce asks in a soft tone.

“It´s - it´s all my fault.” he brings out. His throat is tight, his stomach a knot. He feels like he´s going to throw up, too. "He - he got hurt because of me.”

“Na, kiddo. Stop talking bullshit”, comes a weak voice. Tony attempts a grin that quickly turns grimace. He shifts his head a little so he can face Peter directly. His brown eyes are rimmed by barely concealed pain, but they focus on Peter just as intensely as they always do.

“I´d lie if I said that I like feeling like the leftovers of a car crash, and boy, I´m gonna give you hell you if you´re not more careful next time. But… we all make mistakes, and the important thing is that we learn from them.“ He coughs dryly, his voice sounding hoarse from vomiting when he goes on.

“I mean, you´re speaking to the guy who spent nearly twenty years of his life selling weapons for a living. People make stupid decisions, Peter, but just trust me, you´re gonna go mad if you hold yourself responsible for everything bad that happens around you.” His eyes hold onto Peter´s for a moment longer before drifting shut, exhaustion taking over, and Peter senses something deeper beneath these words. He doesn´t ask, though, knowing that now is not the time.

Instead, he shifts his body so that he is leaning directly against the cot. He crosses his arms at the height of Tony´s knees, leaving enough distance not to make him uncomfortable, but staying close enough to let him know someone is there with him. Peter rests his tired head on his elbows, deciding that he won´t move from Tony´s side anymore until the man gets medical attention. Despite everything, he feels safe for the first time that afternoon. The jet´s movements have become incredibly smooth, and he slowly succumbs to the exhaustion.

He wakes up in the same position when the quinjet touches down to earth, a little confused, a little tired, and comfortably warm thanks to a black leather jacket that is draped across his shoulders. The remainders of a nightmare waft through his head, and he quickly sits up to look at his mentor. Tony is still asleep, looking pale, weary, and hurting, but gladfully alive.

The quinjet´s ramp recedes, and Tony´s eyelids flutter open when a swarm of medics enter and lift him onto a stretcher. His gaze flickers around for a moment, then settles on Peter, and he winks at him once before he is carried out. _Don´t worry kid, I´ll be alright._

And for now, that´s all Peter needs to know.


End file.
